Billiard Games in 1999

Carom Billiards.

After a one-year absence, Sweden’s Torbjörn Blomdahl again assumed his familiar role as the world’s best three-cushion player. The popular Blomdahl won his seventh Billiards Worldcup Association (BWA) title since 1988, finishing the last four stops of the BWA Tour with a rush and overcoming a substantial lead in standings points held by defending world champion Dick Jaspers of The Netherlands. Daniel Sanchez of Spain won the unified BWA/Union Mondiale de Billard world crown.

In July Las Vegas, Nev., was the host city for the first Grand Prix three-cushion tournament on American soil in a decade, despite political turmoil and in-fighting between the collaborating Carom Corner Tour (CCT) and the U.S. Billiard Association (USBA) that still threatened the event mere months before it was to take place. The USBA president’s resignation defused the situation, and to the relief of both players and fans, the Carl S. Conlon Memorial World Cup drew 140 players, thought to be the largest and almost certainly the best field ever assembled in the U.S. Scoring was exceptional, with the 32 finalists averaging 1.415 points-per-inning (PPI) in the unusual and nerve-wrenching single elimination format. Sang Chun Lee won five straight matches and averaged 1.625 PPI to capture the $6,500 first prize.

The CCT’s 1999 schedule attracted another world-class field to the U.S. in August in Chicago. A $45,000 purse was at stake, and the star-studded international field responded to the challenge with blistering scoring averages and scintillating high runs. Blomdahl, the runner-up, finished with the highest PPI grand average ever recorded in the U.S., a breathtaking 1.919 (despite three losses), and posted the tournament’s high run of 18. It was Sang Chun Lee’s flawless streak of 11 victories in a row, however, that gave him the title and the $6,500 first prize. The South Korean-born New Yorker had only slightly less-dizzying statistics than Blomdahl, with a 1.739 PPI average and a high run of 17. Lee also won an astounding and unprecedented 10th consecutive U.S. national three-cushion title.

Pocket Billiards

In pocket billiards the year provided no relief for the embattled U.S. men’s professional player organizations and their members as the seven-year-long struggle for control of the sport’s top players and tournament-sanctioning rights continued. Oddly, neither of the major initial combatants in the squabbling, the Professional Billiards Tour (PBT) and the Professional Cuesports Association (PCA), seemed to be viable organizations any longer. For the second year neither body had a sanctioned tour, and no events were held that required (or were dependent on) sanctioning by either group. No acknowledgement of dissolution had come from either group, but veteran industry observers speculated that neither organization was likely to survive. That prospect was a bewildering one, since pocket billiards, both in the U.S. and worldwide, had been riding a strong wave of popularity for 10–15 years, and the Women’s Professional Billiard Association had experienced steady increases in its tournament participation, purses, sponsorship, television exposure, and spectator attendance.

The PBT, which had an arrangement with Camel cigarettes to sponsor several million dollars’ worth of professional events over several years, lost that sponsorship and was reportedly suing Camel over the issue. Camel, meanwhile, continued the program on its own, dropping the PBT and seeking to avoid the PBT-PCA conflict by running the eight major events itself and letting the tournaments be open to everyone. In 1999, after two seasons of conducting that open tour program, Camel announced the discontinuance of the program.

What remained for the players was a handful of independently produced tournaments about which they had nothing to say, over which they had no control, and—without the $860,000 Camel tour—offering about as much money as pool players had competed for in 1959. Even the Mizerak Senior Tour, hailed just a year earlier as a “haven of peace amidst the political tempest found at most other events,” was in 1999 publicly accused of monetary irregularities and mismanagement by a faction of players. Though evidently the accusations were not proved, their effect on the tour’s future was potentially damaging.

The World Confederation of Billiards Sports, a group of billiard and snooker supporters seeking inclusion of the cue sports in the Olympics, made significant progress in 1999. The body gained official recognition by the International Olympic Committee as an official sponsoring federation. The International World Games Association (IWGA) also accepted four cue sport disciplines to be contested in the IWGA VI World Games, to be held in Japan in 2001. Men’s pocket billiards, snooker, and caroms, as well as women’s pockets, were scheduled to be played.

In December 1998 international team pocket billiards competition at the Mosconi Cup in London—the “greatest spectacle in Nineball”—Team U.S.A. turned back Team Europe in a thrilling 13–9 match. The 1998 Player of the Year awards went to both Francisco Bustamante and Buddy Hall among the men, while English star Allison Fisher won the women’s title for the third straight year.

Snooker

At the tournament in Sheffield, Eng., in May, Stephen Hendry of Scotland became the first man to win the world professional snooker title for the seventh time and provided the incentive for an all-around standard of excellence in 1999. (SeeBiographies.) His maximum break of 147 in the final of the British Open at Plymouth, Eng., was emulated by Ronnie O’Sullivan of England at the Grand Prix event held in October in Preston, Eng., where the eighth 147 break in professional competition was compiled during the year.

The Grand Prix, the 15th in the series, was won by Hendry’s compatriot John Higgins, who defeated Mark Williams of Wales by nine frames to eight in the final. Overseas influence was diminished by the elimination of James Wattana of Thailand in the fifth round and Marco Fu of Hong Kong at the quarter-final stage, and by the end of the year, three British players, Higgins, Hendry, and Williams, had moved to the forefront in world rankings.

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